82 



FRUITS 



degree than in the rose and calycanthus, forming a sort of 

 closed urn in which the flowers are contained. Examine 

 the contents with a lens, and it will 

 be found that they consist of hun- 

 dreds of what appear to be tiny 

 seeds enveloped in a pulpy mass, 

 but which are, in reality, the small 

 achenes produced by a multitude of 

 minute flowers that line the recep- 

 tacle. In the fig this entire mass 



-Vertical section of, i jj-ui v._„«. 



a fig, showing the minute becomes pulpy and edible at matu- 

 flowers inside the closed rity, SO that we Only State a fact when 

 we commit the hibernicism of saying 

 that the fruit of the fig is a flower — or rather, a bunch 

 of flowers. The same is true of the mulberry, only here 

 the edible flower mass is attached not to the inside, but 

 to the outside of the receptacle. 



The fig and strawberry are both accessory fruits ; which 

 of them is collective also, and which aggregate .' The 

 mulberry and blackberry .' Is it possible always to dis- 

 tinguish between an aggregate and a collective fruit without 

 having examined the flower ? 



115. Fruit Clusters. — Be careful not to confound aggre- 

 gate and collective fruits with mere clusters like a bunch 

 of grapes or of sumac berries. The 

 distinction is not always easy to make 

 ^out. The clump of achenes that make 

 up a dandeHon ball, for instance, though 

 held on a common receptacle, like the 

 mulberry and other collective fruits, have 

 so little connection with each other, and 

 separate so completely at maturity as 

 to partake more of the nature of a cluster 

 than of a collective fruit. The same is 

 true of the clump of tailed achenes that 

 make up the fruit of the clematis. 

 Though the product of a single flower, and thus techni- 



l86. — Head or cluster 

 of dandelion fruits. 



